Facebook: Take the money and RUN!!

I am not the first to notice this, but Facebook is becoming ANNOYING!

Yes, it is clever, darned clever, fiendishly effective at drawing you in - it ensures that unlike with MySpace you are basically in contact with people who are genuinely your friends, and who is going to refuse to click on a link that says, "Your friend xxxx has sent you a message..."?

But this viral vivacity could be its downfall. Things seem to have gone downhill since I wrote I scorn your Facebook "friendship" - I am now daily assailed with these messages of the type "Your friend XXX has...", and do you know what you most often get when you click on these? An invitation to install yet another application, which a friend of yours has installed, probably after being similarly prompted.

The main problem is that most applications upon installation also automatically tick your entire friend list and if you don't UNtick them, ALL your contacts also get an invitation to install the same application. And like I said, your friends will hardly refuse you...

This is out of order and it's got to stop. Facebook should return to the original reasons for its success - the creation of a genuine, consensual, fun social network. Either that, or TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN Facebook, because I am not the only one mumbling dissent. If Facebook continues on this path I can see it rapidly declining to the point where they'll be lucky to get tuppence ha'penny for it.

And my advice to you is - start pruning that friend list (hey, erm, what DOES happen if you delete a friend, does Facebook tell EVERYBODY, or can you do it, quiet-like?) and ignoring some of those notifications. And if you really must install yet another application, UNTICK all your friends before you do so! Facebook must be kept under control lest it mutate and die the death of an out-of-control virus...